As the use of information technology (IT) becomes more prevalent, it has become increasingly common for many organizations to use enterprise storage systems for storing files and the like. In an enterprise storage system, multiple data storage cells or farms are provided at different geographic locations throughout the country or world. These cells can be used for sharing files among individuals within the organizations. For example, International Business Machines Corp. of Armonk, N.Y. uses a technology known as the Global Storage Architecture (GSA) for file sharing.
Unfortunately, in many enterprise storage systems such as the GSA, vast quantities of the available resources are unbalanced and/or unused due to the clustering design. Specifically, it is currently the case that files are stored based on geographic parameters. For example, if user “A” is located on the east coast of the United States, currently technologies would store his/her files in the nearest cell. However, such storage might not make the best use of the overall system. Rather, it could be the case that the east coast cell is nearing its capacity, while a midwest cell is virtually empty. Further, it could be the case that the east coast cell does not support a needed rate of network connectivity, while another cell does. Accordingly, none of the existing technologies take performance-based parameters such as storage capacity, user requirements, etc., into consideration when selecting a file sharing location.
In view of the foregoing, there exists the need for a computerized system, method and program product for managing enterprise storage farms. Specifically, a need exists for a system that better utilizes storage resources. To this extent, a need exists for a system that stores files based on certain performance parameters.